Free Starfighters of Adumar by Aaron Allston

said.
    Wedge didn’t bother to glare; Tomer’s attention was fully on the fight. “You mean, it’s a very decorative way to get killed. You’re awfully unconcerned.”
    Tomer shrugged. “This is their planet, Wedge. Theirway of life. It’s for me to understand it … not to try to change it.”
    Cheriss, backing away from an especially aggressive advance, caught Depird’s blastsword blade centimeters below the tip with her dagger. She swung it out of line and brought her own blastsword point to bear in a single, beautifully fluid motion. Depird tried to check his forward motion but couldn’t—his body arched away from her blade but he ran upon it anyway. There was a sharp crack, a shriek of pain from him, and he was thrown to the floor on his back. He lay there writhing, a blackened patch on his tunic at the center of his chest, smoke rising from it.
    Cheriss, barely winded, set her dagger on the floor. She turned to smile at Wedge, then extended her hand toward him, palm up; a moment later, she turned it palm down.
    “You get to choose,” Tomer whispered. “Palm up means she spares him. Palm down means she kills him. Palm up will suggest excessive sentimentality on your part—not something the Adumari hope to see in a fighter pilot.”
    Wedge stared at him. “You think I should let him die?” he whispered.
    Tomer shrugged. “I’m not expressing an opinion. Just analyzing actions and consequences.”
    Wedge put on his sternest face, his offended officer face, and stepped out into the open ring. He moved to stand over Depird, who writhed in obvious agony. The duelist was unable entirely to keep quiet; each of his breaths emerged as a moan.
    Wedge studied him critically for several seconds, then raised his gaze to Cheriss’s. He spoke loudly enough for all to hear. “This boy needs to learn to handle pain, so that when he does die, he does not embarrass his family.” He held out his hand, palm up.
    Cheriss shrugged and nodded, not apparently bothered.Some applause broke out from the audience, and some murmuring; but Wedge could see the perator nod agreeably, and suddenly all the courtiers around the ruler were applauding, and the applause spread from there to the rest of the crowd.
    Wedge returned to his place in the audience. As he approached, Tomer, too, applauded. “A good solution,” Tomer said, his voice barely audible over the crowd. “Credible.”
    “We’re going to talk about this later,” Wedge said. “And you’re not going to enjoy it.” He looked around for his pilots and spotted them, all three together, standing toward the back of the audience ring.
    The crowd broke up, its members drifting away, and Wedge saw the perator ’s personal retinue move toward a side exit. Two men dressed in the featureless brown livery worn by the door guards collected Depird, hauling him unceremoniously to his feet and helping him toward the main exit. Janson caught his eye and grinned uninformatively.
    “Did you like it?”
    Wedge turned. Cheriss, her weapons once again sheathed, stood before him. Her smile was, oddly, just a little uncertain.
    “He certainly did,” Tomer said.
    “I thought it was a very impressive, skillful display,” Wedge said truthfully. “With an interesting aesthetic component. Do I understand right that his objection to you was that you’d beaten his brother in a tournament?”
    She nodded. “In the finals of the last Cartann Ground Championship. Depird’s brother, unlike Depird, was one of the few pilots who really knew how to handle a blastsword. Almost a pity that he died of his injuries.”
    “Pity. Um, Cheriss, what purpose did the ground championship serve, other than to establish you as the new ground champion?”
    She smiled. “Well, none, I suppose.”
    “Entertainment,” Tomer said. “And continuation of a tradition dear to the hearts of the people of Cartann.”
    “That, too,” Cheriss said.
    Janson appeared beside Wedge. “News,” he said.

4
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